


don't they know it's the end of the world?

by RiverOfFandoms



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss, Love, Male-Female Friendship, Rage, Romantic Friendship, Spoilers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26857426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverOfFandoms/pseuds/RiverOfFandoms
Summary: MacCready is desperate to find the Sole Survivor (reader) after her return from the Institute, where she finds out more than she hoped, and not all good. Includes main plot spoilers!
Relationships: Robert Joseph MacCready & Female Sole Survivor, Robert Joseph MacCready/Female Sole Survivor, Robert Joseph MacCready/Reader
Kudos: 18





	don't they know it's the end of the world?

**Author's Note:**

> just... angst. But also forgiveness. This was sitting in my drafts for a while, so why not post it?

It wasn’t hard for him to find her. 

MacCready knew the signs of her. He’d been travelling with her long enough to know her marks. Though she tried to be subtle, since learning about tracking while travelling with him, he still made mental notes on her routines and favorable spots to stay. Just in case they ever got separated, like now. 

He’d left Sanctuary to visit Good Neighbor, to hopefully get some news from Daisy on how Duncan was going since sending him the cure. It was a few days travel because of a minor detour around a camp of super-mutants. He had thought about taking them down but without her, it would have been suicide. He was so used to having her around that it felt like second nature to initiate an attack and wipe out an immediate enemy. But he was alone. 

When he came back to Sanctuary, he got word from Nick that she had run off. 

There was yelling between them, and a deep anger to MacCready’s voice that he didn’t quite understand. He knew the synth detective didn’t deserve it, but he couldn’t help himself. Why would she leave  without a word?

“She went to the Institute.” Nick said, searching MacCready’s angry eyes which peered out from underneath his green cap. 

He shook his head at Nick, “She said she wouldn’t go. Not yet. Not until I came back.”

“I know,” Nick murmured. “But she went anyway, I couldn’t stop her. Sturges didn’t know a thing about your agreement. She played us both.”

“What happened?” MacCready finally  asked , not really certain that he wanted to know. 

Nick shrugged, “She went. Time was passing me by and I was starting to get worried. The machine… the machine was destroyed when it zapped her over there, I was certain she wouldn’t even have a way back. Then, by the end of the hour, I saw a beam of blue lightning crack through the air just outside the walls, near the bridge.”

“It was her?”

“It was her, alright,” Nick confirmed, “I saw the blue Vault suit and the big, yellow 111 on her back. But she wasn’t running to Sanctuary, she was running somewhere else, kid.”

“Shi—” MacCready stopped himself in time and let out a huffed, frustrated sigh instead. He kicked at the dirt, his fists clenched and unclenched. That  _ damn  _ woman! “Why didn’t you follow her?” he could feel the anger bubbling up out of his chest now.

“I tried, MacCready. She outsmarted me. I  lost her somewhere between Oberland Station and Diamond City.”

“You don’t know her like I do, I can find her.”

Nick nodded, “My thought’s exactly.” He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his coat pocket and passed it to MacCready, “These are the places I checked, in that order. Some notes. Old habits die hard, I guess. H ope it helps.”

MacCready shoved the paper into his pocket, without so much as a glance at the scribbled words, and shifted his rifle, “Come with me.”

Nick frowned, if a synth of his kind could even do that, “Why?” he asked.

“Backup. I’m not taking any detours this time, if there’s a pack of super-mutants or raiders or gunners – hell,  _ any  _ of it, I’m going straight through, I don’t care. I need your help.” 

“Don’t you think someone like Danse or Hancock would be a better choice than an old synth like me?” Nick suggested, trying to pick apart MacCready’s motives. He trusted the kid as much as he  _ could _ , because she did, but he wasn’t so sure this was the right choice.

MacCready looked away from him. All he could think about was the million things you’d stupidly do on your own. “She listens to you.”

Nick sighed, “She listens to you,  _ more _ .”

MacCready shook his head, “I don’t think so. Not this time…” he fiddled with the rifle strap around his shoulder, “I can’t go by myself. I can’t stand Danse. Hancock’s too trigger happy—” he looked at Nick in his dim, yellow eyes, almost desperately, “I can only imagine what she’s gone and got herself into. I can only… imagine what might be left of her. I can’t do this on my own. It has to be you.”

Nick knew the perils she so often got herself into. She wasn’t much of a thinker when it came down to it. Especially when concerning her family and the people she cared about now, even. Nick knew MacCready was right, she could be anywhere doing anything, and she didn’t deserve an ending like that, nor did he. “Alright, kid. I’ll help.” 

It was a rocky start. The trail ran cold a couple times because it’d been a little while since she left. But MacCready wasn’t ready to give up and neither was Nick. She’d done so much, fought so much, helped so much… neither of them  was ready to give up on her. 

When MacCready finally found her, it’d been a few more days. It was beginning to rain, not heavy, just a few drops here and there. The sky was dim, and the clouds were darkening. It might thunderstorm, he thought, but not yet.

She was standing in the middle of a courtyard, somewhere deep in the heart of a city ruin. He was surprised she was still around Diamond city and Good Neighbor. He was sure she’d go off someplace ridden with radiation or so far away , where no one else was , that it would take weeks to find her. 

Her back was to them. Glistening now, in the few drops of rain that had started to fall, but also with shiny, dark red blood. A mixture of fresh and old, human and feral. It was painted on her like a suit of armor. MacCready could hardly make out the yellow Vault-numbers underneath it all, it was so thickly coated. 

Her hair was slicked back over the top of her head with streaks of fresh and dried blood. She turned her face in the dim light and there was a crack of thunder in the distance, but still not much rain. 

Her face was smeared with it. He couldn’t tell whose blood was whos e . 

He looked at Nick who stood beside him , who swore under his breath. His big, yellow eyes brighter now in the overcast day. MacCready could only imagine what the synth was thinking, neither of them could put their thoughts into actual words. But whatever it was, he knew it was some form of disbelief, sorrow and horror . 

He felt it, too.

Her back was still to them, though her face turned slightly, probably at  the sound of  their footsteps which MacCready didn’t bother hiding at this point.

“You found me,” she said, sheathing her bloody sword and  holstering her pistol. She turned to them fully now, her face completely visible. Her skin a mixture of dirt and blood, her eyes big and fierce shone through it. 

MacCready finally noticed the pile of  ferals underneath her, beside her, all around her, scattered. He lifted his rifle out of instinct.

“They’re dead,” she reassured. Her voice was different. Empty. “I killed them.”

MacCready lowered his weapon. His heart was thumping in his chest out of fear from the sight of her. She took all those ferals down by herself. How long had she been doing this? Why? He looked to Nick for help, but the synth was staring at her, dumbfounded. 

MacCready tried to think quickly on the spot. This was  _ bad  _ but it was Y/N. It was still her. He could still help her. “Y/N,” he finally said with a strained voice, as if it was difficult to do so, “you need to come home.”

She  wiped the back of her hand over her cheek which moved the layer of blood around a little but didn’t actually clear any of it away. Maybe she just had an itch. “ I’m not finished.”

“Yes , you are, kid,” Nick finally said, taking a step closer to her. “ You’ve done enough.”

She  unsheathed her sword and  held it up, pointed the thing at Nick, and warned him, “I said, I’m not done. I’m going to kill every last one.”

“Every last one? Are you  _ trying _ to get yourself killed?” Nick asked, practically ignoring the threat of her sword. 

“Am I dead yet?” she questioned, and to MacCready’s horror, he saw her  _ really  _ question it. A look in her eye, a crack in her voice. As if… as if she weren’t really sure. As if she might want to be. 

Nick didn’t notice it, or maybe he chose not to .

“ No,” MacCready started, taking a step closer to her , too. “You’re not. You’re here, alive, breathing… stop this.  Please.”

“I can’t,” she said,  her eyes tearing up. She blinked them away. An d a quiet kind of rage  masked her face. “I won’t.”

“You’ve  gotta come with us, boss. This is… this is not  gonna help,” he said, staring at her in the eyes. Ignoring the blood. The smell of it, the way it glistened. The pile of  ferals . All of it. It was only her, and nothing else. He wouldn’t be afraid of her. He knew her pain. 

“ Why?” she questioned, “What’s the  _ point _ ?”

“What’s the point in doing this?” he argued, “ Like Nick said, y ou’ll just get yourself killed.”

“Maybe that’s for the better,” she spat.  “There’s nothing here for me anymore. This world I woke up to… it took everything from me. Even Shaun.”

MacCready closed his eyes. He’d guessed it, of course. He knew the moment he heard from Nick that she’d ran off, that something  must have happened at the Institute .  How was she still alive? He didn’t know. Why did the Institute let her go? No idea. But for her to  go on a  killing spree like this, a massacre, so unlike her, so  uncaring, so without purpose or  plan…  it only meant  something _ really _ bad had happened .

MacCready opened his eyes again, “That’s not true. You know that’s not true.”

“You have  _ no  _ idea,” she said, angrily. She shoved her sword at him as she yelled, “You had the  _ mercy  _ of watching your child grow up! You still have that! You might not have had Lucy with you all that time but at least she got to be there with you for his first steps, his first words —”

“You’re angry, I get it,” MacCready cut her short, feeling hurt. “But don’t you dare bring them up just because you got screwed over.”

“MacCready—” Nick started.

“Screwed over?”  she laughed. “You think  _ I  _ got screwed over?” She shook her head, laughing still , she stepped over the ferals that lay around her and approached MacCready, sword in hand, “I didn’t get fucking  _ screwed _ over, Mac. I got played.  You think you know how it feels?”

“I—”

She shoved the sword against his chest, the point pushing at his jacket but not piercing through his clothes or skin. Her eyes were on fire and the smell of blood on her suit, on her face, on her hands, invaded his nostrils. “You think you know how it feels to watch your spouse die right in front of you while stuck in a fucking Vault-Tec fridge, to wake up 200 or so years later in a world that makes no sense? You think you know how it feels to have hope that your baby is still alive… to see a memory of him grown into a kid, to  _ finally  _ get the chance to rescue him and then find out that there was no ten-year-old Shaun, that there was no child? But that there was an adult, a sixty-year-old man who woke you from the ice box on purpose just to  _ see  _ how you’d  _ react  _ like it was a fucking game?! To find out that he was the Director of the Institute!? To find out that he was my baby,  _ my _ _ Shaun. _ ”

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. The killing only prolonged it, made it unreal. She threw her sword to the side and leaped at MacCready, tackling him to the ground. She sat on him, trapped him underneath her. Her hands pressed down on his shoulders. She wanted to yell, to scream, to pummel him into the dirt. He grappled with her as he tried to get the upper hand by attempting to shove her off.

Nick  pulled out his pistol and tried to threaten them both with it , but they  only  ignored him.

MacCready kicked her off him and she rolled to the floor. He took this opportunity to pin her down, his hands securing her wrists above her as she lay on her back. His legs clenched around hers to keep them from kicking him. It took a few minutes for her to stop yelling all sorts of profanities and curse words at him, for her to stop struggling against him. He was skinny but he knew how to hold someone down. 

She only stopped swearing when she started to cry. A helpless wail . He knew the sound. Pure grief and sadness . She probably hadn’t cried for her son  yet, instead, she fed her denial by slaughtering  packs of ferals and whatever else crossed her  path . 

MacCready had blood smeared all over him now, too.  His hands were slippery with it ,  but he had a strong enough hold to keep her down. His  jacket , his  face too , but still not as much as what coated her. 

The tears  ran down the sides of her face , like red rain drops.  Her body convulsed with sobs so deep  that it broke MacCready’s heart. He wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay , but  he wasn’t sure if he should  let her go just yet. 

The news that Shaun was the Director of the Institute hit him hard and Nick too. It wasn’t quite the outcome they had both pictured. Shaun was alive but sixty-years-old; and the man that was responsible for a lot of the bad that the Institute had done. Shaun had led her right to him.

She was right. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to find out that your baby had grown up older than you before you could and ran the notorious faction that orchestrated the kidnapping and murder in the first place. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathed . “I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“My baby…” her voice shook and she whimpered, her chest heaving from desperate sobs. 

“I know,” he whispered, “I know.” He slowly let go of her wrists when the sobs began to subside. He loosened the grip around her legs, no longer restraining them, and she lay still underneath him, her eyes still closed. He looked to Nick who only stared back with deep, sorrowful grief in his eyes. 

Slowly, she sat up underneath him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was resting on his knees still, her legs between his. His hands reached for her and held her close to him, an arm around her shoulders and the other holding the back of her head. Then the rain poured down, as if a cloud ripped open right above them, full. 

She was shaking in his grip from the sudden chill the fresh rain provided, and probably the shock from finding Shaun. “We  gotta get her out of this rain,” he said to Nick, over the noise of it all. He moved his hands so that they both cupped her face, and he lifted her face to the sky. Her eyes were closed. With the help of the water, he rinsed her skin from all the dirt and blood, as his thumbs wiped the stuff off her cheeks.

“Diamond City isn’t far, we could haul ass and rent a room at the Dugout Inn? Hell, take the room in my agency, I don’t care,” Nick suggested.

“No,” MacCready replied, now trying to get as much blood out of her hair as possible. He ran his fingers through the clumped, greasy hair. He was thankful for the rain, despite its chill. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate sitting in all this muck once they were somewhere dry. “Too many people. Besides, they’ll take one look at her and decide she’s a synth or something, she’s in shock.”

“Hmph.” Nick answered. “Well, kid, you got any bright ideas?” 

“Maybe,” he  murmured .

He helped her up once the blood was washed out from her face and hair, and as he led them both slowly to a small hideout, in a corner building on the second floor he used to occupy when travelling the Commonwealth, the rain managed to wash the rest of the blood from her Vault suit. 

They climbed the stairs quickly to the hideout. Nick made sure the area was clear while MacCready held onto her. He led her to a ragged mattress lying in the corner of the room, and pointed quickly to a small fire pit in the  center of the floor. Nick got to working on the fire. 

“Okay, Y/N...” MacCready started, his voice soft. Her eyes were distant but she seemed to register his words. “I’m  gonna need you to get changed, alright? You’ll freeze if you don’t.” He pulled out some dry clothes, he always kept a bunch of crap on him at all times, whatever she forced him to carry, anyway. Guess it came in handy in the end. He passed them to her and then turned around, watching Nick start the fire. 

Nick was quick to get it going. The synth stood up from the pit once the flames looked promising and caught eyes with MacCready. “I’m going to see if I can scrounge up some kind of food for her, okay? Who knows when she last ate...” Nick proposed, knowing the rain wouldn’t affect him like it would MacCready, and he knew they needed some time alone after what had happened, and he was happy to give it? It was a hell of a breakdown and he knew she couldn’t recover so easily from it. What she needed now was MacCready.

MacCready nodded and saw Nick off, knowing he’d be okay on his own. When he returned to the fire, he noticed she’d finished getting changed. He wanted to comfort her but he wasn’t sure she wanted it, so he distracted himself with the flames. Other than the rain, the night was quiet. The thunder had moved further away and was only a low, occasional rumble now. 

“Mac?” she croaked, and he quickly spun around at the sound of her voice, standing upright. 

“Yeah, boss?” 

Her lip trembled. She blinked, as if she were coming to. She looked around the building, dazed and confused. 

He reached out for her, to keep her steady in case her legs gave way. He grabbed her near the elbows, “Boss?” he repeated, searching her scared eyes. 

She swallowed. “Mac,” she managed and her voice cracked with sorrow, her eyes teary. She gripped his shirt with one hand, her eyes dropped from his to stare at the material she held in her fingers, she closed her eyes, “I’m so sorry—”

“Y/N—”

She looked up at him as she continued, “I shouldn’t have said those things about Lucy, about Duncan... it was unfair—” a small sob caught in her chest, “You’ve been through hell, too, and it’s not a competition. The Institute screwed everything up for everyone, not just me.” 

“It’s o—” 

“Don’t say it’s okay, because it’s not,” she argued, firmly.

“You...” he breathed, “You just lost your son, Y/N. In the hardest imaginable way. I’m willing to forgive that anger you feel because I know it all too well, believe me.”

“I’m so,  _ so _ , sorry, Mac—”

“You don’t have to be,” he said, quietly, reaching to hold her hand. 

“Let me be, please?” she urged, her eyes round and sad. She accepted his hand into hers.

“Okay, boss,” he said, “but let me forgive you.” He pulled her into an embrace and she hugged him tighter than ever before. He kissed her head, holding her close to him, he kept his arms wrapped around her. She curled into him as if she were meant to be in his arms. And just like the rain had come, slow but inevitable, so did her tears. 


End file.
